Desert

Habitat description
Deserts are characterised by dry climate and extremes of temperature. Not surprisingly, plant and animal life is scarce in this habitat type. Though it is easy to imagine deserts as hot places, it can get very cold in the night. Some deserts, like the Gobi Desert and Antarctica are always cold.

Deserts cover about a fifth of the Earth's area. Rainfall in deserts varies, from about half an inch to over 12 inches. The driest deserts are the Atacama in Chile and Lut in Iran. Here, less than half an inch of precipitation occurs annually, and from condensed fog rather than rain. In the Atacama, many a time, years have gone by without rainfall.

Patterns of wind and the 'rainshadow' effect are usually responsible from blocking moisture-laden winds reaching deserts. The dryness gives rise to daily temperature variations. Lack of moisture in the air heats up the ground very fast in the daytime. Once the sun sets, the absorbed heat escapes equally fast, dropping temperatures drastically. Such temperature fluctuations make survival in the desert very difficult.

Distribution
The most famous desert habitat is the Sahara Desert in Africa. Other desert habitats are found in Australia, the Arabian Peninsula, Mexico and south-west USA, South America (Argentina, Peru, Chile), North and South-West Africa, South Asia, Middle East, China and Antarctica.